


Wherefore Dost Thou Weep?

by Beetle Brownleaf (monsterlover)



Series: I Trust You [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Major Spoilers, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 20:17:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21062588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsterlover/pseuds/Beetle%20Brownleaf





	Wherefore Dost Thou Weep?

_“Wherefore dost thou weep, my love?”_

_“I… I keep thinking about him.”  
_

Urianger walked over to his beloved, lying in his bed, crying.

"Wherefore dost thou weep, my love?”

Beetle swallowed.

“I… I keep thinking about him.”

Urianger settled next to her on the bed.

“Of whom art thou speaking?”

“…Emet-Selch.”

Urianger nodded solemnly.

"Ah, yes. Tis not a happy affair. Wouldst thou care to speak of it?”

Beetle shifted, turning towards him, as he pulled her head into his lap.

“He knew such loss… such horrible, _profound_ loss… and, I know he needed to be stopped, but… I can’t feel good about it. The only happy memory I have of that day is that everyone was finally safe, and you gave your heart to me. Other than that, I just wish none of it had happened. I wish I never had to kill him.”

She inhaled sharply.

“Does that make me a bad person? That I’m upset about defeating him? Should… should I not be?”

Urianger stroked her hair.

“To kill without remorse be the nature of the beast, not of man. Thou feel what thou dost because of the goodness of thy heart. Thy pity be not misplaced. He was a vastly sorrowful and desolate man. One might even argue that thou wert, as they say, relieving him of his misery.”

Beetle sniffled.

“I feel like that’s just what people say when they don’t want to think about it anymore. It just… it doesn’t feel good, or right, at all.”

Her sobs grew louder, shaking her entire body.

“I wish… I wish I had just been taken by the Light. Then someone could have put _me_ out of my misery.”

Urianger’s hand stopped, his blood running cold.

“Beetle… thou cannot truly mean what thou sayest.”

She continued to cry, swept away in her anguish. 

“I wish I’d have just died with my family… I wish I’d have never been born.”

Urianger’s heart sank into stomach. It pained him to hear her speak like this.

“Beetle, cease this, I beg of thee.”

“No,_ no!_ You don’t understand! The longer I live, the more people die for me. Why do people thrust themselves into oblivion, _for me?_ I hate it. I hate it!”

He removed his hand from her, giving her the room to finish her thoughts. She looked up at him, tears streaked down her face.

“And you would die for me too, wouldn’t you? Without a second thought?” 

Urianger looked away from her.

“Indeed. I wouldst die for thee. I wouldst suffer for thee. For thee, there is naught that I wouldst not do.”

Beetle sighed.

“And I hate that.”

Urianger fell silent, hurt by her remark. He tried not to take her words to heart, but it was hard for him not to allow himself to fall into despair, imagining a world without her. And to think that some part of her, no matter how small, wished that to be real? It broke his heart. 

Beetle shook as she continued to cry.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m just upset. I just feel… I just feel horrid about it all. This might sound strange, but… somehow… I felt a kinship with him. Maybe it’s because my home island was sunk into the ocean. My whole childhood and family obliterated in one fell swoop. Just like his home. Maybe, to a degree, I saw myself in him." 

Urianger’s brow raised as he resumed stroking her hair.

“That is, indeed, a similar predicament. One that Emet-Selch might argue insignificant, in comparison to his own.”

Beetle sat up, her brow furrowing.

“Well, maybe it wasn’t an entire star, but it was still significant to me.”

Urianger nodded.

“Indeed. One of many things the Ascian hath failed to grasp. Significance be not objective, but rather, subjective. Thy mother and father, thy home, everyone thou hast lost… they be but mayhap a few dozen individuals. Amidst the great river of time and space, they be but specks. But to thee, they be everything that thou art, and there art naught in this world that might measure that.”

Beetle looked down somberly.

“I still pity him. So much that it breaks my heart. He may have done positively unspeakable things, but he… he had a heart. A soul. He felt and yearned like anyone else. And he hurt… so much. When he showed us the fall of his star, I felt such a sense of dread and… _grief_. A very deep, personal grief, as if I were watching the destruction of our own star.”

She took in a rattled breath.

“I just… I feel _so many things_ about all this, Urianger. And I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know how to reconcile my anger towards him, my hatred for what he has done, with my sheer grief and pity for him. I don’t know why I have all these feelings, at the same time, about him.”

Urianger took her hand, bringing it to his lips.

“Thy soul burneth bright with such a great capacity for feeling, and it is beautiful, my love. It grieveth me so, to know that it bringeth thee such pain, but hear this: I adore thee, everything that thou art, most especially thine ability to feel so intensely.”

Beetle smiled.

“You always know what to say, don’t you?” 

He kissed her hand.

“Nay. Thou art merely the muse. The words doth find themselves easily, under thine inspiration.”


End file.
